Back to Canada again! After my adventures in the hot tub on top of the world last year, Vancouver spa-ing had a lot to live up to. This time it was all about Vancouver’s hot new hotel spa, SENSE at the Rosewood Hotel Georgia.

I can’t pretend that I didn’t pout when I discovered that I’d been booked in for a pedicure. A pedicure, I thought? Come on! I wanted to try the “Cocoon” with a glacial honey and maple sugar-scrub, or the “Vancouver Signature Sensation” with a peppermint-and-herb infused scrub and a Vichy shower!  How spa’d up could I be from a pedi?

Prepare yourself for a rare and exciting moment: Reader, I was WRONG.

At the SENSE Spa, they managed to create a two-hour-massage level of relaxation from a 50-minute pedicure. Magical!

On the fourth floor of the divinely decadent newly-re-built Rosewood Hotel Georgia, the SENSE spa is just around the corner from the pool and gym. I arrived and was ushered into the changing room and given a robe and slippers. Neat touch in the lockers? A jewellery dish so you could put your trinkets somewhere safe.

I slipped into my robe and padded through to the relaxation room, where a signature glass of rooibos tea, redolent with vanilla, greeted me. I immediately felt pampered. I curled up in the softly-padded chair and flicked through a glossy magazine. My therapist arrived and took me to the mani/pedi room. The treat in this treatment was the zero-gravity human-touch chairs “with NASA technology”.

A space pedicure?

Well… OK. But this was no ordinary pedicure. Usually, I find pedicures a gossip-y bit of beautification; this pedicure clearly went deeper than that. I began by picking a colour polish and chose a scrub from three different scents (geranium, please!). The polish and products are all vegan-friendly. My therapist gave me a cinnamon-scented heated pillow which wrapped around my neck, melting away all stressed muscles. I lay back in the chair, which she adjusted to a spine-neutral position, and felt instantly and completely cradled, super-stress-free and happy. My therapist spritzed me with something rather heavenly-scented, I closed my eyes, and she began massaging my feet.

Embarrassingly, for a spa writer things got rather vague at this point…

Yes, there was a salt scrub; she smothered a masque on my legs up to my knees; warm towels were definitely involved… some clipping and snipping… I remember the sound of Asian-influenced flute and drum music, and then, and then… I must have snoozed off.

Unthinkable!

I remember beaming away, thinking, “This is how I feel after a l-o-n-g massage. Can I really be this chilled-out over a pedicure?” and then, nothing. Until the soft voice of my therapist telling me that it was over.

I shuffled off back to the relaxation room, regretfully saying no to the offer of another of those wickedly-soothing pillows, to drink a little cucumber water and admire my twinkling tootsies – oh – and try to remember what just happened.

Damn, those NASA chaps seem to have the very best chairs. Just goes to show you: in the right spa, in the right hands, even a basic beautification can be a thing of pure spa-bliss. As I drifted out, with the classic “spa-face” of wibbly joy, there was one more treat at reception; my chosen colour was also a mood-reading: balance, the diplomat, and living in the moment.
Yup – all that sounds about right.

If you’re not lucky enough to stay in the 100% hotel heaven of the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, then make sure you at least get to try the spa. Really, the pedicure is perfect…

Getting there

Fly: Air Canada

Stay: The Rosewood Hotel Georgia